More Antigua nature
Apr. 24th, 2013 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanWell, the internet connection was a bit uneven on the trip, so be prepared for the deluge of pictures now that I'm back in Boston, procrastinating away my buffer day!
A female Anolis wattsi, which I'm calling the Antiguan anole but wikipedia is calling "Watt's anole." I believe that juveniles are colored like females and then the males change as they become sexually mature. I saw some small intermediately colored specimens on this trip. The tiny ones are too fast to photograph in most cases.
I walked to the top of the nearby hill most of the mornings I was there. There used to be an easy route to the top but it's been fenced off. This was part of my new route: a path worn by wandering livestock.
And this is the tree at the top of the hill, visible from my in-laws' house. It symbolizes our times on the island for me. After I was hanging from it as you see here, I found myself wondering if it was a Manchineel or "poison apple" tree.
This is another tree on top of the hill--a milkweed tree!
Here Alexis is showing the star-shaped flowers of the tree.
The tree happened to be bearing fruit and flowers at the same time. I don't think we've seen the fruit before, but here it is, a pod the size of a big lemon, stuffed with milkweed fluff and seeds.
This close up of one of the fruits shows a thick covering of aphids and other insects.
The yellow aphid at above right is clearly an oleander aphid, but are the brown ones a different species or just a different stage in the life cycle? The white tentacled beast is a predator in their midst, probably a ladybeetle larva.
Nearby a herd of feral goats keeps their weird rectangular-pupiled eyes on us.
You almost couldn't design better terrain for feral goats.
Wild Madagascar periwinkle pushes through cracks in the unused road.
A mystery fruit in a neighbor's yard appears to be pomegranate, with damage from some fruit-loving creature visible.
Anyone know the identity of this fly on the wall?
Some orange fungus bubbles from cracks in the bark of fallen log. I suspect this is Pycnoporus cinnabarinus.
Down the hill from the house is Deep Bay. Up on the next hill is Fort Barrington.
Along the shore: a laughing gull keeps lone vigil.
In the tidewaters there, an anemone.
A female Anolis wattsi, which I'm calling the Antiguan anole but wikipedia is calling "Watt's anole." I believe that juveniles are colored like females and then the males change as they become sexually mature. I saw some small intermediately colored specimens on this trip. The tiny ones are too fast to photograph in most cases.
I walked to the top of the nearby hill most of the mornings I was there. There used to be an easy route to the top but it's been fenced off. This was part of my new route: a path worn by wandering livestock.
And this is the tree at the top of the hill, visible from my in-laws' house. It symbolizes our times on the island for me. After I was hanging from it as you see here, I found myself wondering if it was a Manchineel or "poison apple" tree.
This is another tree on top of the hill--a milkweed tree!
Here Alexis is showing the star-shaped flowers of the tree.
The tree happened to be bearing fruit and flowers at the same time. I don't think we've seen the fruit before, but here it is, a pod the size of a big lemon, stuffed with milkweed fluff and seeds.
This close up of one of the fruits shows a thick covering of aphids and other insects.
The yellow aphid at above right is clearly an oleander aphid, but are the brown ones a different species or just a different stage in the life cycle? The white tentacled beast is a predator in their midst, probably a ladybeetle larva.
Nearby a herd of feral goats keeps their weird rectangular-pupiled eyes on us.
You almost couldn't design better terrain for feral goats.
Wild Madagascar periwinkle pushes through cracks in the unused road.
A mystery fruit in a neighbor's yard appears to be pomegranate, with damage from some fruit-loving creature visible.
Anyone know the identity of this fly on the wall?
Some orange fungus bubbles from cracks in the bark of fallen log. I suspect this is Pycnoporus cinnabarinus.
Down the hill from the house is Deep Bay. Up on the next hill is Fort Barrington.
Along the shore: a laughing gull keeps lone vigil.
In the tidewaters there, an anemone.
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